Successful Writers Build Platforms

If you want to sell your work commercially, you need to own your list

Whether we write novels, poetry, short stories, or non-fiction — if we want to build a business around our work we’ve got to bring our customers off the mother ships and onto our lists.

The mother ships are the major retailers or social media platforms owned by someone else

When our entire business sits on Amazon, Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter — it take a single-moment rule change to crush your livelihood. And it’s not a question of if, but when. Amazon alone has changed the rules dozens of times since the dawn of self-publishing.

As indie writers we must do all we can to own our lists.

When you own your list you not only have a way to sell more of your writing to your customers, but you’ve got a way to keep the relationship going — and when you’re a writer, it’s all about the relationship.

What’s a platform?

Your platform is the broad umbrella, under which you market and sell your work. Components of your platform include both, parts you own (email and self-hosted posts), and parts you don’t (social, article sites, and sales platforms)

Your platform should have a uniform look and message across all sites.

No matter where someone enters our platform, she should recognize our work. I use them same orange head-shot most places (I’ve been a little lazy with a couple), so when someone runs across my work, they’ll recognize it’s mine.

We try to keep the same color scheme and content strategy across our platform. Our book descriptions are uniform and our author’s blurb on the back is reflected across all our platforms. Some blurbs may be longer or shorter, but the feel is the same.

We don’t want to come across humorous on one platform and dead-serious on another.

It takes awhile for your audience to trust you enough to read your work. I’ve had people follow me for more than a year’s worth of marketing messages, finally emailing me saying “I give up, I had to try your book. You keep talking about it. The thing must be good.”

Think of your platform as a flat spaceship hovering above a giant funnel.

The platform is nothing more than a series of vehicles to get your readers onto your customer list. The list is the ultimate goal.

Almost everything on your platform should point to your list.

Whether it’s an offer for a free book at the back of your current book, it’s your website, your social bio, or the bottom of an article, the only link you should include is an offer to join your list.

The worst thing you can do for your business is to refer a customer to someone else’s platform.

For example, maybe you wrote a social media post about your new book. The natural inclination might be to send that person straight to Amazon. Don’t do this. You worked HARD to get that first bit of attention from this person and now you just sent them to Amazon, where there’s a danger she’ll get shopping-lost, buying shoes and tires instead.

Send everyone to your list.

Your funnel will do the selling for you. Don’t ask for marriage on your first date (ie. buy my book, buy my book! posts) Instead, you form a trusting relationship over time, while selling them books in the process.

How do we get customers to join our lists?

Email is gold. Everyone has an email address (I have at least six that I check daily). You can tell me all day long how you think email is dead, but it’s the last saloon. Social platforms rise and fall with the tides. There are armies of programmers trying to become the next BIG ONE, but they’ll have to pry our email from our cold, dead hands.

We’ve got to give people something valuable in exchange for their email.

Our customers have been duped, swindled, hornswoggled, and cheated into ever scam, lie, and cheat that ever cheated. You think you two-page pdf is going to entice them to ‘join your newsletter?’

No way.

We’re creators. We’ve got to get creative with our offerings. We must give something for FREE that’s worth buying. Let me repeat: if we don’t give something worth buying, but free, in exchange for our customer’s email (and maybe phone and home address) we’ll have a hard time convincing them to join our list.

How do you know if it’s worth buying?

Ask yourself, “would I pay money for this free offering I’m about to give to my customers?” If the answer is no, try harder, or give more.

I can’t tell you how many authors get this wrong. Writers are notoriously behind when it comes to marketing, which is great for us. There’s much less competition than in other spaces.

OK, we’ve got a list, now what?

Once we’ve got a customer on our list, we do everything we can to keep her happy and coming back for more. We give until it hurts and we give a little more.

We set up a prescribed series of automated emails to help the reader get to know us. We don’t ask for the sale right away. Maybe we check-in and ask how she’s enjoying the free gift you gave her. Ask if she’s got any questions about it.

Don’t worry about email frequency.

Some authors I know only email their list when they’ve got a new book to sell — a few times a year. How do you think their customers feel? It’s like the deadbeat relative who only calls when he needs money from you.

There are many successful authors who email every day, sometimes more than once per day (I don’t recommend this, just saying, it’s been done). Worry about writing good content.

If you give your reader something valuable in every email, odds-are she’d rather hear from you as often as possible. I listen to daily podcasts and I’ll re-check my feed repeatedly to make sure I get it when it comes.

When you give valuable content email frequency is an asset, not a liability.

If your customer reads your email, she’s not busy playing games on her phone, or shopping for tires. She’s inside your ecosystem, consuming your marketing messages on a regular basis. Who do you think she’ll buy from the next time you’ve got a book out?

Platforms sound great, how do I build one?

Pick one social site and one article/blogging/business site. You’ll use the traffic already owned by these companies.

Engage your readers where they already hang out.

The worst thing you can do is spend all your time on a self-hosted blog when you’re first starting out. There’s no traffic. You don’t get a good effort-reward ratio. Instead, use Instagram’s millions of users already inside their ecosystem.

You provide great content, relevant to something your prospect cares about (not buy my book), and you funnel people off these mother ships and into your list.

Yes, we need to build our social following too.

Social is a currency you should not avoid. But while you build your follower on someone else’s land, you should work to sneak those customers out the proverbial back door and onto your list.

Don’t pick every platform. Pick the ones you enjoy.

If you hate seeing yourself on video, don’t make a YouTube channel. If you don’t like your voice, don’t record a podcast. Since you’re a writer, it would be smart to have some component of your work (if not all) in written form… just makes sense.

Platforms are insurance policies

No matter what they do out there, you’ve got your customers. You can take them with you and plant your flag down the road.

Everyone starts from zero and everyone hates that part.

It’s a rite of passage. Your list will grow over time. The more work you do to build your platform the faster you’ll grow your list. The better your free offer the faster you’ll grow your list.

The more you make people care about your work, the better you’ll leverage your list into sales.

It’s a process, but it works.

This is how Abraham Lincoln became president. He did it all through grassroots email marketing. Just kidding, but I’ll bet he would’ve if he could’ve.

We want to read what you write, but you’ve got to give us a reason for doing so. There’s a lot of competition for our time. Give us no choice. Give until it hurts, then give a little more.

We’re waiting for you.